Martial Arts of the Society for Creative Anachronism and the Family Tradition

Today's topic fills in an important part of my background. At this point, any reader who hasn't done so, should read the first post on this blog, entitled Introduction. My family's tradition of martial art interest and practice has two main sides - real life defensive and combat arts, and the martial arts that are part of the activities of the Society for Creative Anachronism. The SCA is an organization that in effect mixes historical education and recreation in the form of a massive, multi-generational role-playing game, with an active, dynamic culture and social structure. Among its many activities and elements are several types of martial art.

The most famous and popular of them is called 'heavy combat', and involves armed combat with simulated blade weapons (and a few other hand weapons like maces) made out of rattan and where needed padding, while wearing armor. In the SCA, rank can be earned through excellence in a variety of activities, but arguably the best and highest honors are earned through heavy combat, including - via tournaments - six-month terms as kings of the regional divisions of the SCA, aptly named 'Kingdoms' (after serving a reign, one has a permanent noble rank of Count or Earl, and after a second reign, Duke); and the rank of Knighthood, aka the Order of Chivalry.

The most common armaments for heavy combat are sword and shield, but many other weapons are also freqently seen: many varieties of swords, spears, other pole-arms, maces, and axes. Other martial arts in the SCA include archery and medieval Western styles of fencing. However, it is primarily heavy combat that is relevant to this blog. Combat archery is practiced in some places, wherein, for melees, archers shoot heavily-padded arrows at the fighters in the field.

When my father was in high school, he and his family heard about this new group called the SCA, put some effort into making the best costumes they could, and headed to their first SCA event. It was not long before my father and grandfather tried their hands at heavy combat, and discovered talents at it, so that in time, my grandfather had become a Count and my father a Duke. My father went on to train many others, and many of them in turn went on to achieve knighthood and noble rank. As one example, here is the website of an SCA household founded by one of my father's former "squires" (apprentice fighters, or "deshi' in Japanese terms). The history section on the homepage refers to my father (known in the SCA as "Akbar"); there is a brief page about their martial art activities.

Now, the significance of all this for us here is that my father attributes a significant part of his skill to principles learned in his time studying Aikido, and also particularly from Aiki Ken and Jo as given by Morihiro Saito Sensei in his seminal Traditional Aikido series of books. To be clear, what he did in the SCA was NOT Aikido - for one thing it certainly stands outside the pale of non-competition. Nevertheless, his understanding of handling of weapons, and of footwork and timing, etc. are unmistakably (and would be even if he hadn't said so) influenced by Aikido. Certain techniques he has used are recognizably adapted from standard waza. Meanwhile, the other major influence he cites is Miyamoto Musashi and his Go Rin no Sho (Book of Five Rings).

Since knights in the SCA have the particular qualification and privilege of formally training other fighters, as squires, (many fighters don't go that route, but many do) the effect, though not always realized as such, is to form martial art lineages, organized in households, thus roughly paralleling the many clan-based martial art lineages of pre-Meiji Japan. Since my father was an early knight and duke, there is a large and increasing body of lineages coming from his, which all, whether they know it or not, owe a debt to the Aikido Founder and to his deshi, Saito Sensei. When teaching me, even in SCA contexts, my father has generally included much more of the Aikido influence. For example, he made a point of teaching me a tachidori method at the start of one of our periods of SCA practice in my youth - it was something of a pleasant shock to discover several years ago that the Aikikai Hombu Dojo considers tachidori a type of technique suitable for testing for third-dan black belt, especially since that is one of the few definite Aikido techniques he taught me, aside from some of the suburi exercises. Much more usual was for him to point out Aiki principles inherent in things he taught me from all areas of life, martial art or otherwise, though he did teach me various preliminary basics and exercises. This was not oversight or neglect - he certainly had not, in his study of Aikido, reached a level qualifying him to safely teach taijutsu techniques; also there was no Aikido dojo available close enough in my childhood, so it was not possible to arrange training for me in one.

Our family stopped being active in the SCA before I was old enough to actually engage in heavy combat, and although there were several periods in which we started up some degree of that style of training, we never took it as far as becoming truly active again as fighters. Nevertheless, it forms an essential part of my background, and my family's, and is one aspect of our martial art tradition. It has generally been the only public face of our tradition, other than when we have been (or will be!) students elsewhere. There is clearer Aikido influence in our non-SCA practices - especially since I started to pay attention to and be attracted by it!

Germ of a Supplementary Training Method?

Several thoughts came together this afternoon, as I read this Aikido Journal post and watched the video clip therein. I hope my readers will take the few minutes needed to do the same. Stanley Pranin Sensei's main point, though, is that many Aikido practitioners all-too-often resort to brute force in order to make techniques work, rather than using aiki (which for the sake of simplicity, and the aspect that is relevant for this point, means using the attacker's energy - not our own - by absorbing, harnessing and redirecting it).

The problem, then, according to Pranin Sensei, and a number of other high-ranking Aikido instructors, (in a paraphrased and summarized form) is that in many cases, while people easily enough learn the motions of the Aikido techniques, it appears that many have difficulty with doing them in the way that is necessary to achieve aiki. This includes - again following the opinion of these eminent instructors - such major points as relaxation, and kuzushi, or putting the attacker or partner off-balance. I'm not going to elaborate on those points in this post, but if anyone needs more information to follow this, I suggest checking the Aikido Journal website and its archive of excellent articles.

Some of these instructors, including Pranin-Sensei, have been developing different methods of training to put more emphasis on how to do Aikido properly, without resorting to exerting power to force a result.

Now, the streams of thought that came together for me started with remembering the examples my father has always given me for seeing and using aiki principles in other kinds of actions and work in daily life, by which I mean effective and efficient use of balance and various, mainly physical, kinds of energy (ki) in the handling of different objects, primarily heavy ones. Just as importantly, he taught me to look for and recognize aiki principles in action around me (as well other concepts from other types of budo). An interesting and significant thing is that in some cases, there is little or not difference between these applications and core movements of some Aikido techniques - doubtless with more to be discovered with some focused research.

And then - I thought about the classic Karate Kid movie. I suspect and hope that most readers will at this point know exactly where I am headed with this! For the sake of others, I will explain that in the movie, a teacher of karatedo teaches his student several fundamental blocks, and conditions them into 'muscle memory', by having the student perform a number of very repetitive chores ("Wax On! Wax Off!") with specific motions.  

So, at the moment these thoughts merged together, I realized that there could be benefit in taking these applications of aiki principles with inanimate objects and adapting them as exercises that could be useful supplements to Aikido training. While some might correspond to actual and recognizable Aikido techniques, or portions of them, the really important thing would be the additional conditioning to using balance and energy without the additional tension found in working with a partner, and far more so in a true confrontation. It could only be a supplement to regular, traditional training, very secondary, but I see potential for it to be helpful to many.

This is something that must be properly worked out by qualified instructors. I most decidedly am not one such, however much I might hope to become one in the future. I can perhaps hope, at least, to be able to work in some capacity with those who might be interested, qualified, and able to put these things into practice properly.

This post is vague on details; that is conscious and deliberate, since this is just the beginning of an idea, and I've only just started thinking of it myself. I hope to expand on it soon enough, particularly if there is interest. Meanwhile I would of course be most interested to hear if similar ideas or even experiments have occurred elsewhere.